No. 2

Brussels-based composer Christina Vantzou first made her name as one-half of the Dead Texan, a project with Stars of the Lid's Adam Wiltzie. Her second solo album, engineered by Wiltzie, underscores her way with mood and commitment to subtle composition.

Brussels-based composer Christina Vantzou has made a name for herself by being unassuming. In collaboration with Stars of the Lid’s Adam Wiltzie, she made up half of the Dead Texan, whose 2004 collection of noisy vignettes supposedly stemmed from aborted SotL pieces. These sketches were too aggressive to fit in with Wiltzie’s main project and Vantzou, who was then best known as a maker of bleary short films, stepped in. The Dead Texan’s music was all loops and whorls, more intent on grabbing your attention than SotL’s work but still grounded in the monochromatic haze that Vantzou would go on to explore in her visual art and in solo material. Her new solo album, No. 2, underscores her commitment to subtle composition.

No. 2 takes the gauzy, filmic work that made up Vantzou’s first release and homes in on the emotionally engaging details. Even with its expanded instrumental palette and larger string section, it’s small moments that give her music a new diversity. Vantzou’s bedtime symphonies have been fleshed out with the addition of woodwinds and a more dynamic use of her voice, and “Sister” in particular stands out for its foreboding clarinet swells in the midst of an album heavily reliant on a glacial string section.

Vantzou works well with the short form: No. 2 is only 35 minutes, without any tracks breaching the five minute mark, so her amorphous drones never overstay their welcome. And while there are no appreciable hooks, Vantzou has a pop sense of timing and she’s intent on making this record a digestible whole. Each track carries its own emotional weight. Even “Strange Symptoms”, which is little more than a minute-long keyboard drone, functions as a placid comedown from the elemental movements that bookend it.

Still, No. 2 still holds onto that unassuming nature, for better and for worse. When moments like the funereal horn lines on “Vostok” break into the open after several tracks of frigid drones, the contrast is absolutely heart-rending. But these transcendent moments are few, and No. 2 could still use a little more of that drama.